


Mayor Peter Hale

by DarkAthena (seraphim_grace)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Cu Sith, Gen, Mayor Peter Hale, Roz - Freeform, Verges on crack, demit, original adult character - Freeform, original kid characters, peter with a baby, peter with kids because peter would be terrifying, so she got the opera ghost instead, this was meant to be a gift fic but February happened
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-13
Updated: 2020-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:41:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23129479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seraphim_grace/pseuds/DarkAthena
Summary: After everything with Monroe has happened Peter just wants a quiet life, the universe has other plans.Peter becomes mayor and gets left holding the baby - literally
Comments: 29
Kudos: 163





	Mayor Peter Hale

Peter wasn't sure where he was now. Without light, there was no real way to measure the passage of time. The floor was damp and there was a drip, but he was sure he was losing time. He had to get home. He had to, but he couldn't remember why. He didn't know how long he had been here but he was pretty sure it was Scott McCall's fault.

He had decided in the intervening years that everything was Scott's fault, even when he left the dishwasher open and cracked his shin on it stumbling around the kitchen in the dark.

He had been taken, he was being held captive, he had to get home, and these were the things that he held constant. He had an appointment. It was important. It was more important than this. He just couldn't remember why.

They must have struck him about the head. It would explain the smell of blood. Head wounds bled a lot. They might have thought that they had killed him.

He moved slightly, testing his bonds. Steel quenched with wolfsbane oil, it burned his skin, there was an electric current, prickling like pins and needles, maybe enough, maybe. He had an appointment. He had to get home.

\---

After the dust had settled on the horror show with Monroe Peter found himself in a rare and unenviable position of being left behind in Beacon Hills because Scott had decided that he could not be trusted. This didn't bother Peter as he hadn't wanted Scott to trust him anyway. Scott was an idiot but the others had still been listening to Scott at that point.

Theo could be trusted because he had Liam to vouch for him but Scott wasn't willing to listen to Stiles, Derek, Noah, or Argent because if Scott had one virtue it was muleheadedness. So it was decided, well Scott decided and could not be swayed, that Peter would remain behind to protect their parents - who needed no protection whatsoever: The first time someone threatened Noah Parrish had dealt with it in such a final manner that the hunters mostly left Beacon Hills alone.

He enjoyed unemployment and no threat of danger for about a month before he had read the books by authors he liked that had come out since the fire, watched a few versions of them on Netflix; learned to play World of Warcraft, got to level 55, started a death knight, decided the whole thing was incredibly boring but good for audiobooks and decided he needed something to do.

With the number of supernaturals in Beacon Hills, he started a temperance bar, a place to gather that didn't require drinking alcohol which tasted like petrol to those with enhanced taste buds. It was given a 1920's aesthetic and made its drinks on-premises with deals negotiated with the local farmers, even if he had to flash fang at the woman with the bees to get her to listen to his proposal. 

Witches who kept bees were terrifying.

It was successful enough to attract the attention of the mayor who probably was affiliated with the local criminal element, or if he wasn't he really was missing a trick. He slapped Peter with so many supposed violations for not submitting the proper bribes, and he had made it clear that that was what he was expecting for his paperwork to be expedited [had Peter known bribes were expected he would have paid them] and going to city hall to complain he met Roz.

Roz had been one year from retirement for as long as anyone could remember. She wore floral dresses under brightly coloured cardigans with different coloured pockets stitched on - pockets full of handkerchiefs and mint humbugs, and had a lilac rinse in her hair. She had also worn the same pair of dark green cat eye glasses with rhinestone studs in the corner from at least the fifties. 

Peter knew a god when he saw one and decided he was never going to complain to her again.

Her attitude was if you don't like the way the mayor does things do it yourself.

So Peter did.

He ran for Mayor.

Noah had thought this was hilarious because it had taken Peter so long to get to politics. "Peter," he said over lunch in his office, "politics is manipulating people and getting them to think they like you, how did you not consider it before?" leaving Peter with his mouth as wide open as the stuffed bass on the bookshelf. 

Winning had been easier than he had thought and the previous mayor had been incompetent as well as corrupt so a lot of the meetings were arranging to spend the money for what it had been taxed for and within a year Peter was, by virtue of just doing the job he was actually elected to do, one of the best mayors the town had had in years. He even put his temperance business in trust.

He bought himself a kit house from Germany and moved into it within two months and decided everything was glorious, he had enough of a job to keep him busy, although most of what he did was lament the incompetence of those who went before him and put in conditions that would make it difficult to be a hunter in his town, and met up with Noah for lunch and started a weekly game of Gin Rummy with Noah and Melissa when their shifts allowed. It kept his ear to the ground.

He was still surprised when Derek showed up in a new Toyota minivan that had been through hell. Derek didn't look much better. He drove up the drive to the brand new glass and wood house that Peter was beginning to suspect might be a bad idea but looked amazing, kicked open the door and led in a bundle of blankets with a backpack.

That was how Peter met Miri, as he was coming down the stairs with a toothbrush in his mouth wondering what the fuck, Derek normally gave him some warning he was in the area.

Miri was about six years old with limp blonde hair and crooked fingers that she kept in her mouth. She had a look about her that spoke of pain and terror and Peter, who had the paternal instincts of a rock, wanted to rip and rend and tear and make it right for this stranger. She was a wolf.

"Uncle Peter," Derek said in a quiet voice, even for him, "this is Miri, she's the only survivor of the Winhome pack. Miri had big brown eyes and she was staring at Peter like he was going to hurt her. "She needs somewhere safe to stay."

"Won't the other packs take her?" Peter wasn't a good person, he knew he wasn't a good person, he was selfish and lazy and could be cruel. 

"No," Derek said sadly, "they won't."

Derek sat on the floor, cross-legged in front of the girl, never making an attempt to touch her. "Miri, this is my uncle Peter, won't you show him your eyes."

She did, flashing blue, as Derek flashed his, and Peter noted the way that for a moment that they were red before Peter flashed his own. 

Peter sat down like Derek had, crosslegged so it would be difficult for him to get up quickly, and far enough away that she could feel that she might be safe if she tried to run away. "Someone hurt you, didn't they?" she didn't answer, "and you made it stop, didn't you?" there was a slight motion that might have been a nod. "You made them go away." Peter could feel vomit at the back of his mouth, the rage was so strong in him. She was little more than a baby and trauma had reduced her to this. "I made them go away too," he said softly. "Would you like to stay here with me?" She sucked on her fingers a little harder, "and Derek can stay for a little while, to make sure you get settled." The blanket moved a little. "shall we go find a room for you? I have lots of rooms and you can have any one you want," Miri just moved to the couch and stood beside it, trailing her backpack.

"I didn't know where else to bring her," Derek said, looking abashed, "I knew you'd keep her safe."

Peter didn't correct Derek that his way of keeping people safe was eliminating the people who threatened them and right now he wanted to do that very badly.

Peter let Derek scent him before going into the kitchen and finding the jar of hot chocolate that he kept a secret although he lived on his own because he didn't want anyone to know he liked a malted hot chocolate with little pink heart marshmallows. If anyone asked he drank coffee. He made three cups and left one on the counter making sure that Miri knew it was for her if she wanted it.

When Derek had gotten her settled in one of the guest rooms, the one that overlooked the road, Peter called Noah in a panic. Noah was Stiles' father, he could cope with anything parenthood could throw at him, except, it turned out, Peter Hale panicking at three am because Derek had delivered him a traumatised pre-teen who didn't talk and was so completely out of his depth he was among sea monsters. Noah called Natalie because Natalie had had a little girl and the next morning she showed up using terms like Child Protective Services and foster care until Derek threatened her with his teeth and made her take Derek to the mall to get her clothes.

Derek might not have been violent by nature but he didn't look like it and Natalie never got the memo.

With Miri unable to go to school Peter came up with the popular council office daycare system because he couldn't keep her in his office and although Roz offered to teach her to knit the entire idea gave him a cool wet feeling in his bowels like he was feeding the child to an elder god. He let her look after Miri once, but only whilst he hired an accredited child care professional to look after all the children of the mayoral staff, paying for his wages out of Peter's own pocket. He taught Miri nice things with yarn like knitting dollies and pom poms not knitting sigils designed to summon krakens into socks. 

It also meant that Peter was in the same building as Miri which settled his nerves somewhat.

\---

After Miri came the cat which was not a cat when Peter caught it out of the corner of his eye which rocked up one day, moved in and threatened Peter with what sounded suspiciously like a growl when he tried to move it from the couch. Peter's mother had always said you don't adopt cats - cats adopt you and this one had adopted Miri. But out of the corner of his eye, Peter saw a great slinking beast of fangs and claws and it let Miri carry it around like a plush toy so Peter was pretty sure that the two of them had come to an agreement. Miri came first and Miri called it Koo which Peter didn't find ominous at all. The fact that when the cat first arrived the house had smelled like Stiles was, Peter maintained, the only reason he let it stay but there was something to be said for sprawling out on his ten thousand dollar couch at the end of the day and watching late-night hosts on the tv with a cat purring on his belly.

\---

The next misfit was brought to him, again by Derek, a teenager called Sam who was Peter assumed was a werewolf, he smelled like one but Peter wasn't one to pry and Sam didn't show any real signs of it. Derek admitted a week or so later that Sam was the last survivor of a cull in Boston and that he was human, but his parents were both wolves. Sam was in that stage where he was growing out of his clothes overnight and his voice cracked and it was easy enough for Roz to change his paperwork.

Peter sat him down and said that if anything came for him that Peter would put himself in his way but Sam sometimes still woke up with nightmares he wouldn't talk about. 

Peter didn't press. He had nightmares too.

He'd let Sam sit up with him, the cat sprawled in the space between them in the cushions purring like a jackhammer and they'd watch the late-night comedians or box sets on the nights where Sam couldn't sleep. Pretending not to notice Miri creeping down and joining them on her chair wrapped up in a quilt. 

Peter had to admit it was nice.

\---

Honey showed up on a Tuesday evening when Peter was about to go grocery shopping, with Miri in the car seat and Sam holding a list. She was a tall woman, with a few inches on Peter and built like a professional wrestler with tan skin and dark hair cut into a severe one-sided bob. She had a smile like a knife-edge and wore black fitted clothes and combat boots. As soon as Peter saw her he went on alert, and even Koo started to walk back and forth in front of the glass front of the house.

"Peter Hale," she started, "you need my help," and took the grocery list from Sam calm as you please and dropping her duffle by the door went to the car, checking things off the list as she went.

It turned out that Lydia had sent her. "She's a demit," Lydia explained, "she's powerful and bored. I figured you could do with the help protecting Beacon Hills."

Peter complained about the lack of a heads up but by that point, he had been overruled and Honey had moved in. She was not, she was keen to point out, there for him, she was there for Miri and Sam and would not pick up after him. As she looked like she could fold him up and fit him into an envelope and he wasn't sure what a demit was he wasn't keen to push her on the idea. She and Roz got on like a house on fire. Koo and she kept a respectful distance from each other.

It was three months later when Peter was making plans to move into a larger house when he first got to see what Honey was capable of. A few hunters, human dregs determined to be noticed by those higher in rank, made a move on Peter's house. The glass front made it all so obvious as Sam took Miri to the panic basement and Peter cracked his knuckles prepared to take them down when Honey put her hand on his shoulder and said: "I've got this."

"On the lawn," Peter said to show his contempt of the whole thing, "easier cleanup."

She moved like water, and the six hunters became five with a snap of an important sounding bone and then five became four with a messy thump, then four did something stupid. He shot her in the head. Honey was rocked back, then moved forward licking her own blood from her lips, and smiled "you really shouldn't have done that," she said and changed.

It was a quick transformation even if it was loud and messy and involved her hair, she went from a beautiful large woman, muscular and capable to a furry demon cat spider with an open rib cage forming spines on its back, perhaps twelve legs and a face with glowing cat eyes and a mouth that split her from shoulder to shoulder. She was also the size of a school bus.

In his life, Peter had seen many things. He was experienced and thought that he knew his way around the supernatural. On that day Peter was humbled and surprised he didn't piss himself seeing her. Two of the hunters could not say the same and by the time she had finished, which was quick - thirty seconds tops - there was no mess to clean up except splatter on the grass, and with a second bone-crunching muscle-smacking hair-whistling-like-wire-across-something-wet series of noises she was human again, naked and a little bloody.

Peter wanted to make a comment about being scared and horny but he was just scared and when he turned around he realised there was a little pair of blue wolf eyes at the basement door.

Later with Miri, wrapped in a quilt, in his arms as they watched the tv, he asked her how she felt about Honey being a Lovecraftian monstrosity in disguise and Miri had given him a little smile and said "safe".

Peter moved house three days later.

\----

Someone was whistling outside the basement. Peter could hear it. The more he focused on the whistling the more sure he was that he had something to do. It was nearing time. He had an appointment. It was important but he didn't know why. He had to be there. He had to.

The wolfsbane on his wrists burned but he thought he could slip his hand free. If he got one hand free he could get loose. If he got loose he could make his appointment.

He had to make his appointment.

Nothing else mattered.  
\---

Sam skipped a grade meaning he went to High School in the fall, the summer had been mostly quiet, a few visits but nothing life-changing until Liam Dunbar drove up to the new house, one of the McMansions on a quiet street with the back facing the preserve, in a battered old ford and literally thanked God that Peter was in.

Liam then opened the back door of his piece of shit ford and pulled out a brand new car seat baby carrier, complete with new baby, with a tiny red face and white jersey cap covering a head of dark hair. "Long story short," Liam said putting the baby into Peter's arms, "I am the least qualified person to look after a baby." As he said this he pulled out a diaper bag and handed it to Sam, who had been proud of acing his chemistry test and was surprised at the werewolf who didn't even say hello just handed his guardian a baby, "Monroe had the mother, gave birth during the rescue, mother died, and whoops we have a baby and Mason was like we have to go to Babies R Us and they sell all the shit to look after them but don't tell you how and we have a new baby and yeah, I have to get back."

He was stopped from fleeing by Honey who made him stay for a meal of Pork Rendang - which was her way of demanding an explanation. She was an excellent cook so Liam decided he could leave after dinner.

The baby was two days old, she had been checked out by an actual doctor who worked with them on occasion and she was healthy, but Liam had no idea what to do with a baby and the area packs didn't want to deal with them because of the whole situation with Monroe and how they didn't want to get involved or having people know where they were and so hadn't even let Liam explain that he had a baby that needed homing and he didn't know what pack the mother had been in because she hadn't said much except "baby, now" before giving birth and dying in Liam's hands and he was freaking out and Derek had said that he had brought Miri here and that he was hoping Peter would know what to do.

Peter did not know what to do.

He called Melissa to find that she had blocked his number which he decided was fair and then called Noah who again called Natalie but this time Natalie was helpful. Roz had a new birth certificate for him by the end of the week, which made him her legal father and overwhelmed by the whole situation Peter looked at the baby in his arms as he watched the late-night talk shows, Miri, asleep, with her head on his lap, and Sam reading his English coursework in the armchair and called her Delilah because the tiny little creature with a pacifier in her mouth had torn all his walls down the instant she took his finger.

When she cried he found himself singing the chorus of the Tom Jones song softly to her- even though as Stiles pointed out it was a song about a man killing an unfaithful lover - but the other song, that Hey there, Delilah bugged him. And every time she smiled, at him, at Honey, at Miri, Sam or Koo his heart felt too big for his chest.

Every day as he put Delilah to bed, first in his room then in a butter yellow nursery that adjoined it, he would read to her "Each peach pear plum, I spy Tom Thumb..." and so it went on; until she could recognise his voice; until she could roll over; until she could sit up on her own; until she was standing at the bars of her cot in her soft little onesies waiting for him to come to read to her. Every day without fail, no matter how busy he was at city hall, he made it there to put her into the crib, to sit down on the rocking chair and lift the same book "each peach pear plum, I spy Tom Thumb," and although the book was designed like Where's Waldo with the rhyme urging children to find the character in the illustration Peter read it to Delilah as if it was the greatest literature.

That done he went to Miri's room where she was tucked up in bed and read her a chapter of a children's novel, kissing her forehead before he left, leaving a night light on. At eight her bedtime was a little later than Delilah, who got a nap in the afternoon after all. Sam was old enough to go to bed on his own say-so with the reminder that on a school night he did have to get up in the morning. But they maintained the ritual of watching the late-night talk shows together.

\----

Peter slipped the first handcuff, and used his strength, bolstered by his legs, to pull the pipe he was chained to from the wall. He had an appointment. He wasn't going to miss it. He couldn't remember what it was but he had to be there. It was incredibly important that he be there.

Upstairs the screaming stopped.

He hadn't noticed when it started, only the eerie finish of it.

The door opened and Honey was there, wearing a hoodie that didn't fit her and stank of smoke and Peter knew that was wrong but not why. "You look a mess," she said, as she pushed her hair out of her face, "I've got wet wipes in the car."

He followed her because she was his, she would take him to his appointment. She fussed over him in the car, worried he had a concussion and not liking the burns on his wrist, reminding him he was not who she was there to look after. All he could tell her was that he had an appointment.

"You'll be just on time," she reassured him and drove a little faster.

He ran into the house, up the stairs and to the nursery where Delilah was waiting, standing up with her hands around the bars and bouncing shouting Dada over and over when she saw him. "My my my, Delilah," he sang picking her up and at that moment as he sat down in the rocking chair to read to her Peter knew all was well in his little world.

He had made his appointment on time.

"Each peach pear plum, I spy Tom Thumb."


End file.
